Rick Deckard is a mess. Not just because he’s a washed-up cop in a trench coat who drinks too much and lives in a rainy, neon-lit version of Los Angeles that looks like a fever dream. No, he’s a mess because, forty years later, we still can’t agree on what he actually is. Is he a human with a soul? Or is he a piece of hardware with a fake past?
Honestly, it depends on which day you ask Ridley Scott or Harrison Ford.
The character first crawled out of the mind of Philip K. Dick in the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. There, he was just a guy. A bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Department who was obsessed with owning a real animal—specifically a goat—because owning a mechanical sheep was social suicide. He had a wife named Iran who sat at home dialing her "Mood Organ" to feel depressed. In the book, the question of his humanity isn't really the point. The point is that he’s a human who starts feeling more like a machine while the machines start feeling more like people.
Then 1982 happened.
The Great Identity Crisis of Rick Deckard
If you watch the original theatrical cut of Blade Runner, you’ve got the noir voiceover. You’ve got a happy ending where Deckard and Rachael drive off into the sunset. It feels like a standard sci-fi detective flick. But then Ridley Scott started tinkering. He released the Director's Cut in 1992 and the Final Cut in 2007, and suddenly, the whole "Deckard is a human" theory started to leak.
The biggest smoking gun? The unicorn.
In the Final Cut, Deckard has a daydream about a unicorn running through a forest. Later, at the very end of the movie, he finds a small origami unicorn left by the mysterious Gaff. The implication is heavy-handed: Gaff knows what Deckard is dreaming about. How? Because it’s an implanted memory. He’s a replicant. Or at least, that's what Ridley Scott wants you to think.
Scott has been very vocal about this. He basically said, "Yeah, he's a replicant. Next question." But Harrison Ford hated that. Ford argued that for the audience to care about the movie, they needed a human protagonist. He wanted Deckard to be a real person who finds his empathy through his targets. Even the screenwriter, Hampton Fancher, has basically said "no" to the replicant theory.
Why 2049 Only Made Things Weirder
When Blade Runner 2049 came out, everyone expected a definitive answer. We didn't get one. Instead, we got Deckard living in the radioactive ruins of Las Vegas, which—kinda importantly—would probably kill a human. He’s also the father of a miracle child born to a replicant mother, Rachael.
Niander Wallace, the creepiest CEO in cinema history, even taunts Deckard about it. He suggests Deckard was "designed" to fall in love with Rachael to see if they could reproduce. It was a "mathematical precision" rather than love. Deckard’s response is perfect: "I know what’s real."
He doesn't give us a "yes" or "no." He gives us a "does it matter?"
The Clues You Might Have Missed
Look at the evidence. It’s a tug-of-war.
- The Eye Shine: In a few scenes in the original film, you can see a faint orange glow in Deckard's eyes. It’s the same "replicant glow" seen in the owl and Roy Batty. Harrison Ford claims it was an accident. Ridley Scott says it was intentional.
- The Photos: Replicants love old photos. They need them to "ground" their fake memories. Deckard’s apartment is covered in them. Most of them are black and white, depicting people we never see or hear about.
- The Physicality: Deckard gets his butt kicked by every replicant he meets. Leon almost kills him. Pris almost breaks his neck. Roy Batty toys with him like a cat with a mouse. If Deckard is a replicant, he’s a remarkably weak one. Maybe he was an older model? Or maybe he was built to be average so he wouldn't suspect himself?
The "Humanity" Argument
There's a strong camp that says making Rick Deckard a replicant ruins the story. If the whole point of the movie is that humans are becoming cold and "synthetic" while the machines are learning to love and fear death, then Deckard has to be human. His journey is about rediscovering his soul by watching a machine (Roy Batty) show more mercy and poetry than any human in the LAPD.
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If he’s just a robot hunting other robots, the irony is gone. It becomes a movie about hardware updates.
But then you have the "more human than human" angle. If Deckard is a replicant who believes he is human, who lives a life of quiet desperation, and who eventually chooses love over his programming, isn't that even more profound? It suggests that "humanity" isn't a biological status. It's something you earn.
Dealing with the Fallout
So, where does this leave you, the fan? Honestly, in a pretty good spot. The ambiguity is the feature, not the bug.
If you want to dive deeper into the Rick Deckard rabbit hole, start by watching the "Final Cut" and then the theatrical cut back-to-back. The shift in tone is jarring. Then, pick up a copy of the original book. It’s a completely different animal—literally, it’s mostly about animals.
Next Steps:
- Compare the "Unicorn Dream" in the Final Cut to the "Happy Ending" in the 1982 version to see how editing changes a character's entire nature.
- Pay attention to Gaff (Edward James Olmos) in your next rewatch; his origami figures are basically a commentary track on Deckard's internal state.
- Read the "Black Out 2022" short film synopsis to understand why records of Deckard’s origins are so hard to find in the sequel.
Deckard remains the ultimate "Is he or isn't he?" case in pop culture history. And maybe that's why we’re still talking about a movie from the early 80s like it came out yesterday.